Ellen DeGeneres

Humor Heals

After her parents divorce, DeGeneres, 13, uses her comedic talents to help her mother, Betty, recover. "Helping [my mother] cope with a broken heart, it brought us closer together and made me realize the power of humor," DeGeneres tells Teen People in 2006.

Teenage Trauma

DeGeneres and her mother leave New Orleans for the small town of Atlanta, Texas. Her older brother Vance, 18, stays in New Orleans with their father, Elliott, an insurance salesman. In Texas, a 16-year-old DeGeneres is secretly molested by her new stepfather as her mother struggles with breast cancer. Raised as a devout Christian Scientist, she is naïve about her body, telling PEOPLE, "I didn't know. I wasn't educated." After she graduates from high school and moves back to New Orleans, she finally tells her mother the truth.

Sibling Rivalry

Brother Vance hits New Orleans' New Wave rock scene and attracts the attention of local girls. "Everybody knew who he was," DeGeneres later tells PEOPLE. "That's what motivated me to do something, because I watched him get all this attention and glory." After a semester at the University of New Orleans, she drops out to pursue comedy.

On the Road

DeGeneres begins the first of many tours, criss-crossing the country to perform in small bars and clubs. "You have to be really, really tough-skinned," she tells W. "There's lots of traveling, lots of being by yourself, lots of really rude drunk people. You're not just in big cities; you're in small towns, mini malls, strip malls...lots of places where, literally, the soup of the day got top billing. There would be a chalkboard on the sidewalk and it would say: SOUP OF THE DAY: BROCCOLI. AND ELLEN DEGENERES."

Heeeeeere's Johnny!

DeGeneres becomes the first female comedian Johnny Carson invites for a chat on the couch on The Tonight Show. "I'm sitting on this mattress infested with fleas [in 1980], and I thought, 'I'm going to do this on Johnny Carson, and I'm going to get called over to the couch, and I'll be the first woman in history ever to get called over,'" she says on Today. "I had created that experience because I wanted it."

August 27

Let's Play Secretary

DeGeneres expands her repertoire to television with the Fox sitcom Open House, which features her as Margo Van Meter, a sparky receptionist at a L.A. real estate firm. The show lasts one season, but it introduces DeGeneres' observational, oddball sense of humor to Hollywood execs. "In Open House I was trying to be this goofy character," she tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "She was so over-the-top and so weird."

April 14

"Yep, I'm Gay"

DeGeneres publicly comes out on the cover of Time, making her television's first openly gay star. Conservative Rev. Jerry Falwell proclaims her "Ellen DeGenerate" while the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation honor her as a gay icon. However, DeGeneres could do without the attention. "I'm very uncomfortable with [being an icon], because I'm not," she tells Time in 2004. "I didn't choose to be anything other than a comedian. I just happen to be gay, and I didn't feel like keeping it a secret, so I announced it. It all turned into this whole big political thing."